I agree but Star Trek was never intended to be hard Sci-Fi. Sometimes it even breaks from its own cannon (and I’m not just talking about Discovery/Klingons. Alm

I agree but Star Trek was never intended to be hard Sci-Fi. Sometimes it even breaks from its own cannon (and I’m not just talking about Discovery/Klingons. Almost all of the alien species have undergone revision over the years). So I’m ok with replicators being a lazy plot device. It’s not like there aren’t countless others, like transporters, the usage of large mother ships rather than lots of smaller vessels, universal translators, 3D geometry presented in 2D, every species being bipedal, etc. The point behind Star Trek is that it presents the best of humanity rather than the worst — which is what most other popular sci-fi stories focus on.